This article is a companion to our broader exploration of why child marriage still exists globally and why efforts to ban it often meet fierce resistance.
One question comes up again and again:
Is child marriage more common among girls?
The answer is yes.
Globally, the vast majority of child marriages involve young girls married to older men. This is not incidental, and it is not simply a matter of tradition repeating itself.
It reflects deeper assumptions about gender, identity, protection, and control — assumptions that are rarely questioned because they feel like survival.
The Numbers Point to a Pattern
Across regions, cultures, and belief systems, child marriage overwhelmingly affects girls.
This isn’t because boys are inherently safer.
It’s because girls are perceived as more risky — and risk is often managed through control.
Understanding why requires looking beneath morality and law, into fear-based logic that feels reasonable from the inside.
Girls Are Treated as Risk to Be Managed
In many communities, a girl’s body is treated as a site of risk.
Risk of sexual violence.
Risk of social shame.
Risk of economic burden.
Marriage is framed as a solution — not because it is safe, but because it transfers responsibility.
From family to husband.
From community to contract.
This is often described as protection.
But protection, when driven by fear, easily becomes containment.
Control Masquerading as Care
Families that arrange child marriages are not always acting out of malice.
Many believe they are preventing worse outcomes for their daughters and for themselves:
- Poverty
- Assault
- Social exclusion
- Loss of status
This doesn’t excuse the harm.
But it explains why outrage alone rarely changes anything.
When fear defines identity, control feels like care.
Why Girls Carry the Weight of Honor
In many cultures, girls are burdened with preserving family honor.
Their behavior is treated as representative of the entire family’s worth.
This creates an impossible standard:
If something happens to her, everyone is implicated.
Marriage becomes a way to manage risk and uncertainty — a way to stabilize identity through structure.
But stability built on control is fragile.
And it comes at a devastating cost.
Boys and Power Aren’t Seen the Same Way
Boys are generally granted more autonomy.
Their sexuality is less regulated.
Their movement less restricted.
This difference isn’t accidental.
It reflects a deeper belief:
That power should move outward — and risk/vulnerability should be contained.
Girls are positioned as the ones who must adapt.
When Law Collides With Identity
This is why child marriage bans often face resistance.
They don’t just challenge a practice.
They challenge an identity structure.
If girls aren’t controlled through marriage, families are forced to confront deeper questions:
Who protects them?
Who bears responsibility?
What replaces the old certainty?
Without addressing these fears, laws alone feel like threats rather than solutions.
The Deeper Pattern
Child marriage is an extreme expression of a universal dynamic:
When fear defines safety, control becomes morally justified.
Girls simply carry the heaviest weight of that logic.
Not because they deserve it.
But because they are positioned as the ones whose freedom feels most dangerous to the system.
Awareness Doesn’t Blame — It Reveals
Condemnation can name harm.
But awareness reveals why harm persists.
Lasting change requires more than prohibition.
It requires addressing the fear-based identities that make control feel necessary — and the unexamined assumptions about gender that keep repeating themselves.
Closing Note
This reflection is part of an ongoing exploration into identity, fear, and how suffering persists when protection is confused with control.
These themes are explored more deeply in Proof That You’re God, a book about identity, awareness, and what becomes possible when fear is seen clearly rather than acted out unconsciously.
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKCMR183/
Reflection
Where in the world — or in yourself — has protection quietly crossed the line into control?
